More on the Learning Curve

I guess it is a little to do with the 10,000 hours thing that some skills become intuitive* , and you can focus on the challenges of the day, the competitors and conditions. If you haven't heard of the "10,000 hours' rule " then it comes from a book on exceptional performance in humans called "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell. He based this on a study by K. Anders Ericsson,who considered musicians playing that most difficult to master instrument, the Violin. He concluded that on average musicians aged 20 had amassed 10,000 hours experience, tuition and practice. This is just a single observation and not an actual rule, and neither authors have stated it is an absolute rule or major factor. The related factors are natual ability, aptitude and attitude to learn in the student and a programme they are on, or set themselves which is focused on targets. However " directed practice" , repition and the physical aspect of form, stregnth and condition are very much in this 10,000 hours philosophy One thing that is related and people often forget or find frustrating, is the finding that performance can plateau. That is to say gains in how good you are at a sport, instrument or other skill level out for a while or in fact you just dont get any better during an extended period of repitition or training. George Leonard discusses this in his book "Mastery" , with his main inspiration being martial arts. Repetition is important. There is the one element of motor-neural pathways being reprogrammed and " hard wired" so they become intuitive movements, while there is also a more cerebral Too many sailors I have known became "frustrates". These are either people who really don't have a clue about how to learn and progress. They got so far in sailing and seemed to be pretty contented, even smug about their abilities and the boat's -set-up. They were complacent. Mediocre performances were discussed in terms of lady luck, other competitors messing up their chances or the misfortune to have chosen the wrong side of the course for the favoured wind conditions, or that old bad penny in HC racing, " my boat never goes well in these conditions for its' handicap" . Good results were taken as a a sign that all was well. Usually few and far between and usually due to fortuity of other, better competitors messing up their game for once. A self congrtulatory, sometimes rowdy after sail followed with some taunting of other competitors. As the great Uffa Fox postulated, if you make three mistakes in a race, and only three, then you deserve a third place. Two? Second and of course you may make one mistake but that is few enough to earn you the win. With the frustrated sailor, and I can include myself for some time back, does not only fail to learn from their mistakes, they even fail to recognise their mistakes. Once you learn to count your mistakes as coins in the learning bank, then you can start to solve them. You focus on correcting them, rather than the larger over all goal of winning a race. This is why goal setting is a little dull in fact. Gains are based around correcting mistakes and proceeding in new, alternative ways. These are very often marginal gains. But embracing your mistakes " ah there is something we need to consider and learn from" is the first step. The second step is HOW to correct mistakes or errors in training, skills etc. What do we need to do ? Which new knowledge do we need? What must we practice on? Who and where do we get help? The latter in many sports is difficult for adults as the sport's coaching is focussed on children and youth, then a very tight pyramid top. Some clubs do have coaches, but the quality varies greatly. Some I have found are not very good teachers and have a rather closed mindset on how things are done, and anyway are not the best sailors in the club by a long way. Like religion, the new converts can be the most evangelical so you tend to get that type too who cant really answer specific questions often relating to correcting mistakes, setting the next goals or learning a new skill. Fellow competitors are often not that willing to give away secrets of their success. The reverse of this is also an ok thing - to use a crew or helm from a better boat for a race or two on yours. Once again, depends on the teaching skills and attitude of the person you approach. It can often be quite uncomfortable with a very domineering or the reverse, a very reticent crew coming aboard. One good way round this is to sail with better sailors as crew. For anyone who has mastered the basics of sailing and can sail safely in a racing fleet, then this is the real area for a quick win. A major gain in knowledge. The other approach I always recommend, is go back to a dinghy sailing school and get some one on one instruction. One hour in a wee boat is worth five in a keel boat. Back to school then. You can either use "external resources" as above, do some reading, or just go and practice. What you are armed with by this point is a small list of mistakes you want to correct, and a couple of defined skills' goals. You could say that a gap in your knowledge is a "mistake" or you could say that a mistake is a gap in your knowledge! You have to prioritise correcting mistakes though imho. So you may find one mistake to work on and one goal to improve to focus on. So for example this could be the phsyical mistakes you make tacking as a goal, with a related goal of knowing when to tack , usually on a shift.' Now you need to go out and implement these tasks. And then practice them. THis is the plateau. You make a gain, you consolidate that gain. You remain focused on ensuring that gain is cemented in your skill-set. And importantly you dont move on before you feel this comes as second nature to you. Identifying a wind shift is big enough or right sided enough to tack on, and tacking smoothly in and straigtening up out of the tack. The case may be though that you take a week at a sailing school, or a whole regatta as crew on a much better boat. Here you will make major gains. Or should if you are receptive. Go into these situations with an open mind, dont be defensive about your own position or knowledge. Be huimble. True too if you get an ace crew or two for a week long regatta, be receptive, qualify their criticisms or suggestions. So take your entry to such quite auspicsous occaisions as a kind of ground zero. I have come to where I am, but now I am all ears and will learn like a child doing something for the first time. Russel Coutts was giving an interview I think for the IACC boat era of the Auld Mug , and he said basically " we went out an learned a lot today ". This struck me as strange. A modesty - even naivety - from one of the best sailors, and biggest egos in top flight sailing. But he had learned to learn - to be a child again. When you do change your mind set to this, dropping your shoulders and accepting change is necessary and being humble is your entry-ticket, then you will find it very rewarding. This is because gains go into your skill set without the pain of ego filtering your learning experience. " I shoud know this!" or " hmm, doesnt seem like much of a gain to me" or " can I really be bothered to do that" ( for example rig tuning each day pre-race, often a skill set the mid fleet lack to give them any edge to become top fleet). The gain becomes a joy. Wow this simple gain most likely won me places, or at least I felt a sense of mastery having practiced it many times and now it belongs in my mental tool kit, always there when I need it. ==============================
Personal note then I went out in the Grimstad keel boat , a lovely clinker keel day boat One Design, and came second last and last! wow how bad is that for a sailor who can win races!?? Well I had the goals of staying out of trouble as I dont know how the boat reacts so need to keep clear of tight situations, and I dont know how to get the boat going fast yet, and my crew wasnt confident with spinnaker use. That was all beside the point. I wanted to get a feel for tacking angle and sail round the course accurately and safely to give me a base line to then go and learn boat speed, set up and start line tactics in this wee long keeler I have a very open attitude to learning. Could even show faux naievity for fun in order to learn from someone new. Foot note - Instuitive - using or based on what one feels to be true even without conscious reasoning - maybe sublte from instinctive which is more "born with"